Motivation factors of engineers in private sectors construction ..

Abstract:

Construction industry plays an essential role in socio-economic development. (Ofori,
1990) The construction sector has a strategic role in all developed and devel?ping
countries (Kazaz et al. 1999). If it discuss in the Sri Lankan context as a developing
country, the contribution of the construction industry in 2009 is 6.6% of GDP and it
is 28.6% of total industries. One of the issues confronting constructors and owners of
construction project is how to improve construction productivity and cost effectively.
It is believed that increasing construction engineer productivity through improved
motivation would result in significant savings in construction costs". (Duy, 2009).
Further construction engineer motivation affects project productivity considerably so
that researches on engineer motivation are required. However, in the construction
industry, researchers commonly concentrate on the motivation of workers but ignore
that of Engineers. (Jiliang, 2010)
This research does an assessment on Engineers motivation factors in the private sector
of Sri Lankan Construction Industry and how does the Engineers respond to deferent
motivational factors. This study assesses the importance of such motivational factors
and the variation of the importance with the age and gender. A structured and selfadministrated
questionnaire is used to collect data from the private sector Engineers.
This was developed based on the Maslow's need hierarchy and a 5 point Lickert scale
is used for gaining responses. The questionnaire is basically delivered through the emails.
The personnel interviews were carried out for senior engineers at the hire
management positions.
The data is analyzed in to two categories the age factor and the gender using the
response percentages as the analyzing technique. Private sector engineers have
responded and placed the company stability and reputation, workplace discipline and
on-time payments as relatively higher importance. A variation of the relative
importance of those factors is also determined for deferent age groups; 25-30, 30-
40,40-50 and 50+ as well as the male and female engineers.